Oakdale teen finally earns elusive gold medal

The drive home from Lake Placid, N.Y., five years ago was not a happy one for young Amanda Kewer.

Marc Allard

The drive home from Lake Placid, N.Y., five years ago was not a happy one for young Amanda Kewer.

She was in the back of the family car, lamenting the bronze medal won by her Southeastern Connecticut Youth Hockey squirts team.

“I remember her saying that she was never going to win a (gold) medal and never going to get another chance,” her father, Bill Kewer, said.

Little did either know at the time that another chance was not far away.

The Kewers, from Oakdale, all were part of the Connecticut Polar Bears program that captured the under-16 USA Hockey national championship last weekend outside Dallas. Amanda is a 5-foot-71⁄2-inch center who also plays for Pomfret School, Bill is the team’s assistant coach, and Amanda’s mother, Maria Kewer, is the team manager.

Bill Kewer thinks hockey features “the most dedicated” parents and players of all youth sports. Teams play on weekends and, in the Polar Bears’ case, could be in New Jersey, Vermont or Massachusetts as much as they are home in Cromwell, which is not exactly next door to Montville.

Bill sensed the team had something special when it first took to the ice. It finished 30-4-1 and won the Connecticut championship. That vaulted the Polar Bears into the New England regional, where they downed Vermont, 3-2, in overtime.

Everything thereafter was a whirlwind experience for the Polar Bears. They landed in Frisco, Texas, on March 28 and soon played the Brewster (N.Y.) Lady Bulldogs, handling them easily, 6-2. A 4-0 shutout of top-seeded Assabet Valley Girls on March 29 guaranteed Connecticut a quarterfinal berth.

Then, the Polar Bears stumbled against the Potsdam (N.Y.) Ice Storm, 4-1, in the final game of the round robin portion.

“We were very disappointed, but it probably was the best thing that happened to us,” Bill said. “The girls learned they had to skate hard no matter what the competition.”

Down to single elimination, the Polar Bears rebounded with a 6-1 win over the Chicago Bruins on March 31 in an afternoon quarterfinal game. That was just the beginning of a very long 24 hours.

The Polar Bears returned to the ice that night and battled the East Coast Wizards for 3 hours, 42 minutes before securing a championship berth with a 3-2 four-overtime victory. Rachel Muskin, from Madison, scored the game-winner with 2 minutes, 48 seconds left in the fourth OT.

“It was incredibly exhausting,” Amanda said. “I just couldn’t imagine playing anymore and I thought I was going to die if we had to play another overtime.”

The game ended just before 10 p.m., and the championship game was scheduled for 11 a.m. on April 1. But the brief respite possibly paid dividends; the Polar Bears, still high from the night before, downed the San Jose Junior Sharks, 4-3, for the title.

“When we won, I still had to pinch myself,” Amanda said. “It’s amazing to be a part of the No. 1 team in the country.”

Amanda started every game in the tournament, scored two goals and had three assists. The team will be honored by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in the near future.

Amanda’s freshman year at Pomfret School is winding down, but she already wants to play college hockey. She even has her No. 1 choice picked out: Boston College.

“I play in the fall, winter and spring,” she said. “It’s hockey or nothing for me.”

Putnam inductee

A former Putnam High School standout will be honored this week by the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

Kim Belliveau will become the third former Clipper to be inducted into the hall, joining former coach Pam Childs and former teammate Laurie St. Jean. The induction ceremony will take place Thursday at The Cascade in Hamden.

Belliveau graduated from Putnam in 1977 and the point guard was a two-time All-State and All-Quinebaug Valley Conference player. She also played softball and ran cross-country for the Clippers.

But her college statistics elevated her to a Hall-of-Fame level. Belliveau went to William Penn University, where she started at the point all four years and still holds the Lady Statesmen record for games played (152). She helped lead William Penn to the AIAW Division II National Championship in 1981.

She left William Penn as the career leader in assists with 734 and was second on the all-time list with 230 assists in a single season. She also was second in career steals (486) and is ranked 16th in points with 1,264.

After graduating from William Penn, Belliveau got her master’s degree in sports management from UConn in 1985 and sat on the Huskies’ bench for two years as an assistant coach. She moved west for a pair of two-year stints as assistant coach at Fresno State and San Jose State before landing a head coach’s job at Cabrillo College, a community college in Aptos, Calif.

She coached there for nine years and still is the school’s kinesiology instructor.

Belliveau will be inducted alongside former Danbury High School coach Jackie DiNardo; former referee Linda Dirga; former New Britain High coach Beryl Piper; former Shelton High standout Elaine Biercevicz-Piazza; former Amity Regional player Heather Conway-Liberman; and former Masuk High and Fairfield University player Gail Strumpf-Cheney.

Job well done

Lyman Memorial softball coach Gary Hoyt had heard the talk before.

“I had two other kids in the past come up and talk about putting in a pitcher’s area so pitchers could warm up,” Hoyt said. “Another one wanted to put in a press box behind home plate as their senior projects.”

The Lyman softball field doesn’t have either.

“It’s easy to come up with these big, grandiose ideas, but when it comes to doing the work, that’s a different story,” Hoyt said.

But Tori Lussier made good on her pledge.

The Bulldogs catcher was tired of the “dugouts,” which resembled a FEMA project — wood posts covered by a blue tarp. She also was sick of Lake Woebegone, which appeared every spring around third base and postponed many home games.

Lussier did something about it last spring. She led the charge to re-build the infield and construct new dugouts, which are made out of cinder block. Lussier designed the dugouts.

“I put (the bench) close to the front of the dugout because our existing ones were way to the back and people want to get into the game,” Lussier said. “Sitting up higher (and closer) gets you into the game.”

Her senior project was seen by everyone Thursday when Lyman opened against Waterford.

“I told her I was all for it, but I was really saying that I had been there and done that,” Hoyt said. “Then I saw some pictures of what she was doing last summer. The amount of work that she did — her, her father (John) and the volunteers she got together — is just awesome. This is a big upgrade for this facility.”

It was all done with little cash. Lussier estimated that had it come from town funds, it could have cost as much as $35,000. The plan is to honor those who donated time and material in a ceremony in a couple of weeks.

Lussier said she was extremely happy with how the whole project, which took about a month to complete, came out. Now, she’s waiting on just one thing: her grade.

“I’m hoping I get an ‘A,’ ” she said.

New sport?

The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference is looking at adding bowling to its offerings.

The idea came via the Connecticut Bowling Proprieter’s Association, according to Matt Fischer, the Director of Information Services for the CIAC.

“They approached us and Bob Lehr took the lead in our office to put together something to gauge what kind of interest there is from member schools,” Fischer said.

A CIAC press release said bowling is the fastest-growing interscholastic sport in the country, with 19 states now sponsoring it. There also are 65 collegiate programs in the country and 35 of those offer scholarships.

Several schools in Connecticut, according to Fischer, already offer it as a sport, including Warren Harding, Greenwich, Bridgeport Central and Windsor Locks. No one has stepped forward to ask the CIAC to have a state tournament.

The CIAC, instead, has invited all member schools to participate in a co-ed bowling tournament on May 19 at the Bradley Bowl in Windsor Locks. The Connecticut Bowling Proprietors are donating $2,000 for the event to be split among the top three teams. That money goes to those schools in hopes of being earmarked to advance a bowling program. Deadline for registration for any member school is April 21.

In an interesting twist, because it is not currently offered, those who participate in another CIAC-sponsored sport this spring can participate in the bowling tournament without it hurting their eligibility.

The last sport to be added to the CIAC’s current list of 27 was girls lacrosse. There was talk of girls ice hockey being added, but that sport has never caught fire because of its expense. Fischer points out that the cost for bowling is a ball and a pair of shoes.

“If the co-ed tournament is popular, we might split it into a separate boys and girls tournament next year and could add it as a sport two years from now,” Fischer said.